5 Unhealthy Foods Engineered To Be Addictive

There are three reasons Americans’ love affair with snacks is growing– along with their waistlines: the ubiquity of junk food, the ubiquity of junk food advertising, and stealth food technology. People who polish off a whole bag of chips or cookies at one sitting (usually in front of TV) are often doing exactly what the product was designed to do–be addictive.

Have you noticed the overpowering something-in-the-oven smell that wafts up when you walk past a Subway? Mark Christiano, Subway’s Global Baking Technologist, insists the aroma is not pumped outside to entice passers-by and adds that the bread recipe is “proprietary.” But in the war for your food dollar, all tactics are clearly on the table including the way a food smells, looks, and feels in the mouth. Nothing is left up to chance.

“Food technologists” use $40,000 devices that simulate a chewing mouth to test and perfect chips, for example. “People…